Office of the State Treasurer

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Matt Golden

February 3, 2004

(609)
984-7110

Prison
Inmates Charged in Tax Refund Scheme

TRENTON
- State Treasurer John E. McCormac announced today that two Texas prison
inmates have been indicted by a federal grand jury for attempting to defraud
New Jersey and several other states. The prisoners were found to have
submitted falsified income tax refund claims and now face charges of conspiracy
and mail fraud.

Gary
Dewayne Dennington and Vaughn Duwayne Harman III, while incarcerated
in Beaumont, Tex., prepared counterfeit W-2 forms that reported both
men had earned wages and had state income tax withheld during 2002.
Dennington and Harman then filed state income tax returns using the
fictitious wage and withholding figures on the W-2 forms they previously
created. Their filings claimed refunds to which the individuals were
not entitled and caused those refunds to be mailed through the United
States Postal Service.

Texas
prison authorities, after noticing that refund checks had been issued
to the inmates, became suspicious and alerted New Jersey Treasury officials.
The Division of Taxation's Office of Criminal Investigation then proceeded,
in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to uncover
the scheme and prosecute the crime.

"The
New Jersey Division of Taxation worked with the FBI to develop this
case and notify our counterparts in other states about the scam,"
Treasurer McCormac explained. "They determined that Missouri and
Connecticut had also been victims of the Texas inmates' fraudulent refund
claims."

"These
criminals conspired to steal from the citizens of New Jersey when they
used the tax system to obtain refunds under false pretenses," added
State Taxation Director Robert K. Thompson. "Schemes like this
cannot succeed if federal and state law enforcement authorities share
information, as they did in this instance. Our division will continue
to work cooperatively with law enforcement agencies throughout the country
to investigate and prosecute anyone who commits a crime of this nature."